Windy Stairwell Part 2

Image

We had a number of high wind days in New York recently and when it gets windy my old apartment building starts to show it’s age. When the building is under heavy stress, it can almost sound like it is coming apart at the seems. When the wind kicks up, gusts interact with the above skylight and the poorly secured door below. This can be rather  frightening because we are in the middle of New York City, not the midwest. The last thing we all need is Toto flying by our window.

Back in January of 2011 I put up a similar post after we had a hail storm, and large gusts of wind followed. Once I heard those winds again I ran out in the stairwell with the gear and went into record. The section that I have excerpted is toward the tail end of the storm, and it evolves in subtle ways. The wind is only interrupted by one neighbor leaving their apartment at 8:36 into the recording. They open their door, lock it, and move their way down three flights of stairs and leave. The only other interruptions in the raw recording are a few planes flying over head. I never knew I lived in such a peaceful place.

Recording Geek Note: Rig consists of Schoeps CMC5′s setup for MS, with the MK4 as the mid. It was all tracked to a Sound Devices 744T at 24/96.

Leave a Reply

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

  1. Nice stuff! We had a VERY windy day here in Manchester, UK two days ago…as the noise woke me up for good at 04:30 I decided to record some of the wind seeping through the windows too! Will try and upload it…I love wind recordings so was great to hear yours 🙂 All the best!

  2. Wow, the illusion is convincing enough that I put on a sweater! The focus on the rattling door and surrounding white noise really is spatial. Background and foreground invert and exchange places continually.

Michael Raphael April 5, 2012
MORE:
RECENT WRITING